Crushed (twice) at Plevna!

We have been visited by an old alumnus of Oxford Wargames Society: Professor Nicholas Murray of the US Naval War College.

Last year I noted the publication of Nick's book, "The Rocky Road to the Great War". The genesis of this book dates back to when I was a teenager and my dad bought me Hozier's "Russo-Turkish War", starting my obsession with C19 European continental wars which led to the creation of "Bloody Big Battles!". When Nick and I started wargaming together, we played some 1877 Russo-Turkish War games and I got Nick interested in the siege of Plevna, which led to his D.Phil. focusing on field fortification. In the course of his researches, he and I had a memorable trip to Plevna (modern-day Pleven, in NW Bulgaria), replete with gangsters, hookers, pickpockets, gypsies, the "er*tic banana" ...

But I digress. To return to the point: in honour of Nick's visit I set up the Plevna battlefield and took the afternoon off work, so that we could fight both the Second and Third Battle of Plevna in a day, using the scenarios from "Bloody Big European Battles!". Some of the other guys were also around so we had four players for both games. We had an epic day. With this AAR I will attempt to convey some of its epicness. There are a few more photos in Flickr here.

How our Third Battle of Plevna worked out

The Second Battle of Plevna
Nick and Mark J took on the roles of the Russian commanders, Schilder-Schuldner and Prince Shahofskoi, while John was Turkish C-in-C Osman Pasha and I commanded his 1st Division. Of course I had seen the Russians win this scenario in our pre-publication playtests, but Leadhead, Ph.D's reports that the Ottomans had won it three times out of three in his games made me wonder whether maybe it was too skewed against the attacker. I needn't have worried.

That's not to say the Russians didn't find it tough. Mark, on the Russian left, tried attacking the Ibrahim Tabiya and was bloodily repulsed. He gave up there, withdrew to Radishevo, and shifted his weight left to try against the Tahir and Araba Tabiyas instead. The Russian dead piled up in heaps, making no discernible impression on the Turks. Mark was already feeling fragile even before the game, and he found the apparently futile bloodshed genuinely depressing. His personal morale was close to breaking. This was not helped by me quoting Marshal Foch, "It takes 15,000 casualties to train a major general," and suggesting he might be ready for promotion.

On the Russian right it was a different story. Nick decided to mass against the Grivitza Redoubts, just his cavalry threatening my flank and rear. He enjoyed early success when his artillery got some good dice and blew away my guns in the Grivitza. My reduced defences were therefore unable to slow up his infantry enough. He marshalled his troops well, and was able to capture the Grivitza on Turn 3: the one objective the Russians needed for a draw. This also released some Russian reinforcements inconveniently early. (Inconvenient for us Turks, that is.)

By that time of course we had reacted by moving up reserves around the neighbouring Janik Bair redoubts. For the rest of the game we whittled away the Russian infantry around the Grivitza. When they were whittled enough, we launched repeated assaults to recapture it.

One of the reinforcements I committed was the garrison of the Bukova Redoubts. Nick's cavalry therefore circled round behind them towards this objective. This was entirely expected, I had guns covering them, and infantry in a position to respond, but my dice stank. For three turns running, my infantry failed to move at all, and my guns failed to hit. The cavalry captured the Bukova: a second objective, enough for a Russian win.

To make matters worse, Mark's luck changed dramatically. Close to despair, he committed Skobeleff's Cossacks from his extreme left while the shattered remnants of XI Corps stumbled forward to die on Turkish ramparts. His next three dice rolls: 12, 12, 12. The Tahir Tabiya fell to the Russians.

Thus on the final, Turkish, half of Turn 8, the Russians held three objectives. Were we down-hearted? Far from it. We had troops in a position to counter-attack all three, and with a reasonable chance in each case, or so we thought: fail, fail, fail.

The result was thus an emphatic Russian victory. We had the worst of the dice but that is only part of the story. The Russians had a good plan and carried it through well, while we Turks suffered a little from divided command. Unlike the two Russian forces, which are quite widely separated with limited possibility for cooperation, a key question for a successful Turkish defence is when and where to commit the central reserves. I don't think John and I made enough effort to confer about this, focusing instead on fighting our separate battles. A detached C-in-C with an overview might have done a better job of allocating reserves where they were most needed.

But my dice still stank.

The Third Battle of Plevna
Historically this was pretty much a repeat of the Second, but on a much larger scale. In our game it was similar but different.

One big difference was Mark's caution. Still nursing his psychological bruises from the previous game, he hung back initially, just bombarding from long range. He shifted IV Corps north into a valley from which it could assault the Ibrahim Tabiya, and shuffled most of Skobeleff's force east into IV Corps's place.

The burden of the assault therefore fell on Nick's IX Corps and Roumanians in front of the Grivitza again. On average, two or three of his seven brigades should have had half or no move. But his dice were golden, all his troops moved up into positions where they could fire on the Grivitza before assaulting it. While my garrison and supporting troops were able to disrupt or damage a couple of brigades, it was not enough. And of course, Nick's firing dice were destructive and soon blew the garrison away. Frustratingly (but perhaps, from their point of view, prudently), the unit I tried to send in to replace them refused to move. Just as in our Second Battle, the formidable Grivitza Redoubts fell swiftly and easily to the Russians.

Much as in the previous game, the Russians and Roumanians spent the next few turns consolidating and bringing up their guns. Meanwhile the Turks stripped every available unit from the rest of the front, and used these reinforcements to shoot up the Allies and prepare a counter-assault on the Grivitzas.

Our firing dice were disappointing, to say the least, and it took far too long to kill off a couple of sacrifical Russian vanguard units in front of the redoubts. By the time we did, Mark had managed another boxcars roll to destroy the garrison of the Ibrahim Tabiya and swarm in.

Losing the Ibrahim Tabiya was a killer blow. Instead of it lending fire to support our assault on the Grivitsa, it was now full of Russians who were threatening our artillery. At least the Russian fire had slackened momentarily (they were all Low on Ammo thanks to their deadly firing dice), giving us one chance to rush them before they re-ammoed. We launched assaults against both the Grivitsa and the Ibrahim. Re-taking either of these would at least briefly stabilise the situation and give us a chance of a draw, maybe even a win.

However, consistent with how the day had gone thus far, both assaults were repulsed. With their gun lines moved up, and with supporting units around both redoubts, the Russians and Roumanians were now firmly ensconced in the two objectives that were all they needed for a win, and with every prospect of being able to take more from the sadly diminished and dislocated Turkish defenders. We conceded the game to the Allies.

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Although I was on the losing side both times, I was actually quite happy with the outcome. Yes, the Turks were defeated, and in the end quite decisively so in both games. But in the first game the Russians played better, and in both games they probably had the best of the dice; if not overall, then definitely some crucial ones early on, which had major knock-on effects later. The foundation of their victory, though, was sound plans and competent handling of coordinated attacks.

I'd better update my tally for the year. With my two defeats at Plevna, and a win at Kirkkilise, that makes it:

Played: 20
Won: 9
Drawn: 4
Lost: 7